Brazil's floods a key test for Dilma

The catastrophic mudslides around Rio de Janeiro mark a critical moment for Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff

President Dilma Rousseff speaks to a rescuer in Nova Friburgo, one of the districts devastated by floods and landslides, which have claimed at least 500 lives in Brazil. Photograph: Roberto Stuckert/EPA

The floods and landslides that have devastated part of the state of Rio de Janeiro also pose a huge challenge to the country's newly-elected president, Dilma Rousseff. The official death toll is already over 500, but many are predicting the final total will be higher still. This is clearly one of the worst natural disasters in Brazilian history. Water and mud swept through the region, burying many families as they slept. Thousands have been left homeless and roads and power-lines have been swept away, hampering the rescue effort and increasing the misery of survivors.

Dilma (who is universally referred to by her first name) has been quick to organise a tour of the affected area. The government has also announced a $420m rescue package to repair infrastructure and prevent future catastrophes. Whether this will be considered an adequate response, however, remains to be seen.

I was due to visit my wife's family, who live just north of the worst affected area, last week, but we cancelled our trip at the last minute due to the rain. The rainy season is notorious for its mudslides and every year brings some type of event of this nature. Brazilians have become wearily resigned to them – and cynical about their government's response.

But the images that we have been watching show this current disaster to be of a far greater scale; the televised scenes of the rescue efforts have brought the tragedy into everyone's homes. Makeshift morgues are piled high with corpses, many of them children and babies. Graphic images of people scrambling to find bodies, or breaking down after identifying the corpse of a loved one have provoked a strongly emotional response throughout the country.

Many of the houses that were destroyed were self-constructed shacks, built on the edges of hillsides, often without permission. These are often the first to be destroyed in such landslides. The stratified nature of Brazilian society – still one of the most unequal countries in the world – has tended to compartmentalise the public and official concern.

But attitudes may be changing. Media reports have stressed, slightly disingenuously, that the disaster drew no distinction between rich and poor. They have also highlighted how the lack of affordable housing has forced people into vulnerable areas, bringing a new focus to bear on how the weaknesses of planning and state investment in infrastructure have clearly contributed to the scale of the disaster. Dilma herself gave voice to this frustration, when she said, "When there aren't housing policies, where are people who earn no more than twice the minimum wage going to live?"

The construction of affordable housing was a central part of Dilma's recent election platform. Handpicked by her predecessor, Luiz Ignacio Lula de Silva, Dilma has not yet stamped her personality on Brazilian politics – practically the only thing anyone knows about her is that she is a pragmatic technocrat, who can get things done.

Lula left office with sky-high popularity ratings, having presided over a long period of economic growth that had also seen the re-emergence of Brazil as a world power. Although he failed to tackle some of Brazil's most deepseated problems, living standards rose and social inequality did close slightly during his term in office. Lula's prestige and measure of success have raised public expectations about what can be expected from their government – and that, ironically, has increased the pressure on his chosen successor.

Dilma lacks Lula's personal charisma, but she has a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense manager. Since her election victory, she has stressed that her priorities will be maintaining economic stability, reducing poverty and improving education and healthcare. Most Brazilians share these aims and she received an early political boost when the police successfully recaptured one of Rio de Janeiro's most notorious favelas, in an operation she promises will be used as a model elsewhere.

Most observers accept that Dilmas has got off to a good start with her choice of ministers and early public pronouncements. There is even hope that she will embark on some of the more fundamental reforms to the unwieldy Brazilian state, which Lula was unable to complete. For now, though, she needs to show her crisis management skills: how she handles the disaster response will be a critical test of her credibility.